HOMELAND

Marco Sfogli is a Progressive Metal artist from Napoli, Italy. He learned the guitar by playing it along with recordings of his heroes, including "Dream Theater" and has played on solo albums by James Labrie and Jordan Rudess. He has released a solo album in 2008 and another in 2012. His third solo album "Homeland" was released on February 22. 2019. He plays both guitars and keyboards on this album and bass on track 5. All other instruments are played by guest musicians.

The album Homeland is pretty much what you would expect from a solo progressive metal artist. The guitar playing is the highlight, and Marco is a great guitarist. "The 12th Hour", "Corrosion" and "Get Away With It" are all led by melodic metal with progressive leanings, some tricky passages and rhythms, some with more supporting keyboards than others, but without any of these tracks standing out from the other. "Dawn" is a slower ballad done very nicely with keyboards but again led by a melodic guitar. Again, mostly typical guitar god solos, but at a slower tempo.

"Homeland" has a more with a pop fusion sound, leaving behind the metal aspect pretty much by playing a more accessible sound. "Speed Limit" goes back to the metal sound. The middle section is interesting in that it trades back and forth from pop to a rapid fire metal sound washed by synths, but again, its all been done before. "The Travel" is a very short atmospheric track with guitar and synths. It's really too quick to amount to much. "Superwave" is more of the same guitar god style soloing with a heavy tone. "Inner Light" leads off with a piano solo and synth effects. This lasts for over a minute but is soon interrupted by more guitar heaviness. More of the same.

There is no doubt that Sfogli is a great guitar player, and that there is some progressiveness in there, but not a lot, and this has all been done before a million times. Guitar lovers will love this, and can add it to their Steve Vai and Ygwie Malmsteen collections, but it all sound too typical. Nothing stands out really, just good guitar work.